How would colleges view a period in which I
helped answer questions for Precal students and help teach and grade papers?
What other options do you have that could go in that period?
Why not self-study or review whatever you don’t understand. grading papers is legal for students
@NASA2014 I think you meant to say “illegal”. And no it’s not. I graded homework (arbitrary points, no value) for kids as a TA.
kids shouldn’t grade papers. They could tell their friends what they got.
@NASA2014 I was a junior grading papers for freshman. I can’t be caught associating with them. When you TA, you usually TA for a class that has students usually a grade or two lower. And we don’t grade tests. And WOW HOMEWORK IS SUCH A BIG DEAL COMPLETION POINTS RIGHT??? No. We just grade homework and make test keys (after the tests are taken).
I went to a small high school, so I’m guessing this is only seeing in big schools like 900-2000 students
It’s a violation of FERPA for a student to be given access to another student’s grades.
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/parents.html
“Under FERPA, a school may not generally disclose personally identifiable information from a minor student’s education records to a third party unless the student’s parent has provided written consent.”
That’s federal law. “personally identifiable information” includes the grades of a test or quiz or homework that has a name on it.
There are 2500 kids in my school.
I’ve been doing my job for a long time, and I’m good at what I do. I do not hand that job-- teaching or grading or attendance, or classroom management-- off to anyone else. I needed a Master’s Degree to become certified to teach; I’m certainly not handing that job off to a high school senior. I see it as incredibly unprofessional. There’s simply no way I would have a kid do my job, no way I would leave my kids in the hands of another kid to ensure their learning in my class.
But none of that answers the OP’s question.
I’m going to guess that this is a normal program in you school? How selective is it?
Is the teacher you worked with going to write one of your letters of recommendation? If so, then that letter could say a lot about your work ethic, your knowledge of math, your maturity.
As to michelle426 ’ s similar posts: if all you did was run scantrons and grade homework for completeness, then it sounds like service credit for NHS.
Interesting… well the school is incredibly small and in South Texas so I doubt any of the students really care or aware of its legality. This is not really a normal program, its a specialized program for students who finished all possible math credits at school (every 5 years or so there are a few kids who skip through a few maths classes/test out). I would aid in explaining topics mostly, besides grading and what not. My teacher is a math phd so he likes to go really in depth when explaining math to kids and ends up confusing some of them. I swoop in and give a different perspective and try to work with the students, but more often than not I just help students when hes helping others. Also, yes he will be one of my recommendors, so it can give him another topic to write about since he and I are already pretty chill. He accompanied me to all of my Literature and Writing competitions, and we play Magic The Gathering at the beginning and ending of classes sometimes. Really cool guy.
Cool or not, he should be aware of federal law.
I would think a TA would fall under school official who needs access to do their job, which does not violate FAFSA. A TA, paid or not, is functioning as an official from the school, just like a teacher.
As long as you aren’t grading your classmates and are functioning as a TA, I don’t see any problem with that.
OP, I think it would be a great opportunity for you, especially since he will be writing a rec for you. You find yourself TA’ing in college somewhere down the line.
Sorry, as you can guess, this is a sore point with me. Teaching is my job. I refuse to outsource it, and have little respect for those who do.
Students are not school officials. They’re students. They should not have access to the educational records of other students. That’s why FERPA exists-- to guarantee your right to privacy.
Anyway, OP, I would think that this teacher knows you well enough to write a good recommendation. And if the activity is a specialized program with a name and a moderator, then by all means include it.